The Queue: Single player, merch, four specs, and reforging

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky (@adamholisky) will be your host today.

Lots of great questions yesterday, and not all about some old dude who predicted the end of the world. Thanks! Let's get down to it then, shall we?

GenericWoW asked:

PvP notwithstanding, would YOU play WoW if you could play it offline as a single-player RPG?

Think GW1 henchmen for dungeons and raids, AI improved. No possiblity of ever 'porting an offline to online, these sorts of limitations.

I don't see how it'd work. You'd basically level and then what? Run the dungeons, finish off the quests, and then... stop. There's no endgame. Now granted that entire process would rival Skyrim in terms in depth (It may surpass it? I'm not sure honestly), but the point of WoW is a multiplayer experience. Playing it offline would alter the very essence of the game, and that's not something I'd support.

Plus the single player RPGs out there today are much more involved and use a lot more world-shaping mechanics than WoW does. They're different animals, and that's why it doesn't really work comparing WoW to Skyrim, for example. Both are great, but the type of mechanics and systems available in a single player are significantly different than that of a massively multiplayer (think travel, gold, item trade, resource gathering and requirements, leveling requirements, etc...).

Daniel Mitchell asked:

Browsed the new Blizzard Gear store. It feels....scarce. Any where else to get officially licensed gear/clothing, or word on when Blizzard will expand their clothing lines?

Expect it to expand, I can't imagine that Blizzard doesn't have more things in the works after they've made this new store and all. Blizzard would do really well with a set of casual minimalistic WoW shirts. Something that you could get away with wearing at work without a big "For Der Horde!" written on it.

Not that I'm not for der Horde (I am, WoW Insider has a strict policy to only hire Horde writers, after all). But I don't think it'd be ok to walk around my other gig's office with WoW lingo on my back. Although maybe not... we do have whips...

Zheo asked:

how likely, or unlikely, do you think it is for blizzard to introduce 4th specializations?

My question comes from the fact that Druids already have 4, and when I consider the stances of a monk, there is currently no crane stance, which would give them 1 stance per celestial.

Theoretically, I think that would allow for things like shaman tanks (rock biter weapon), caster monks, and maybe a tree for rogues that lets them tank, as examples.

Conceptually I think you can make a pretty serious argument for a 4th spec per class. The examples you laid out make a lot of sense! I'd throw in that warlocks are ripe for a tanking spec, and a hunter-pet tanking spec would be pretty damn interesting too. But that's conceptually.

In reality I don't think it's going to happen. Blizzard has been insistent on saying that it's not a possibility, that they don't want to overload the specs system (There's already what, 30 now? It's something huge like that). Could they reverse their intentions and build everyone a 4th? It's possible, sure, we have pandarens and flying in Azeroth... but overall no, I really don't see how this is going to happen. I'm honestly not sure I'd want to play a game with that many specs. Things are already too homogenized, and adding all those additional specs would add even more overlap to an already overlapped-bloated system (in my opinion).

Bndov3r asked:

Any thoughts on how Reforging might work in WoD, with the whole Stats Change According to Spec -thing? Or did they say they're just gonna remove that feature?

I predict it's going to be gone in Warlords of Draenor.

Actually they've already announced it, but I predicted it above nonetheless, so win for me!
Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW Insider crew is here with The Queue, our daily Q&A column. Leave your questions in the comments, and we'll do our best to answer 'em!